Playtest 176 - Technical Pre-Alpha Build!
starfighter
Member, Administrator
TL;DR - Does anyone know what time it is? It's Technical Pre-Alpha Build time! Oh boy!
As we prepare to enter the Technical Pre-Alpha, it's important to note -- human matchmaking will turn on at exactly 8 pm tonight (bot play is currently open). At 10 pm, human matchmaking will turn off, meaning that no new PvP games are to begin after 10pm PST (the end of our regular playtest hours). At that time, we will IMMEDIATELY be switching into the Technical Pre-Alpha stage until December 14th, at which point our gameserver will return to its original state. Human matchmaking will be open between 12 - 4 pm on Sunday, December 6th and Sunday, December 13th. Outside of those hours, you can always play against bots (and remember, you can party up with your closest friends to defeat the evil bots!).
Please also note - until December 14th - live replays will be offline! We are working on getting regular replays back online soon!
Several major changes have been made to our network code. Please let us know how these changes felt!
We're no longer using the terms "Captor," "Void," and "Grapefruit." We now have Heroes, we no longer refer to the Void, and we've evolved past using fruit as a currency and are more interested in Gems. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE, if you catch ANY references to these, inform someone as soon as possible!
**As of tonight, we are focusing exclusively on the native game client. If you haven't downloaded the native client yet - please click here (make sure that you're logged in!) - to do so.
Game Client
- Tons of polish!
- The allotted time granted to accept a matchmaking game has been reduced to 30 seconds.
- If a player does not select a squad in the allotted time, the game will drop and players will be required to requeue.
- Atlaspedia has returned, and is in the Learn tab with its two new friends, the Technical Pre-Alpha tutorials!
Gameplay & UI
- All of your hotkeys have been force-reset! Please check your hotkey setup if you use custom hotkeys!
- Tons and tons of polish!
- Tuned the amount and frequency of gems
- Made several significant changes to network code.
- Fixed a major bug that prevented 6 Heroes from scaling with level. In general, Heroes should be scaling into the late-game much more effectively.
- Safe gems now scale in value over time
Squads
Grath
- Harden now lasts half duration when cast on Grath himself.
Vela
- Vela has received a new model and animations!
Questions to answer:
- Is the video game fun?
- What impact did the network code changes have on your experience?
- Anything else you'd like to share?
Comments
I did not have a particularly fun time. The game seems fun still, however being in a game against a pre-made of 3 SC2 Grandmasters who were on voice chats four games in a row was frustrating. I also think that its important that this situation be considered for this weekend. Being curb stomped repeatedly is probably going to be neither useful nor fun for new players.
Lag was better most of the time. There's a weird lag right at the start of most games before heroes spawn, but aside from that it was a much smoother experience.
I did notice that Conflagrate is essentially useless against players who are sufficiently good at micro. The delay just takes too long to go off against someone who has enough apm to pull the unit aside. Its a core part of Vex's gameplay loop and without landing some Conflagrates you miss a huge chunk of damage. It felt useless whenever I cast it, dealing moderate damage to one unit and having no further effect. I hope replays from last night become active again so I can point out what I mean more specifically, but Ignitors seem to be one of the ways Vex is able to actually have any impact, and if they can't use their ability effectively they lose a lot of their punch.
Is The Video Game Fun?
I'd kind of combine the two first bullet items, because the game was a lot of fun, and a big part of that would have to be the increased responsiveness. There was definitely a pretty good snap to it, which, while it might seem like a small change from previous, changed the balance of how much time is spent thinking and how much is spent executing (towards the latter).
Additionally, while this isn't a design or execution thing, having more players also increases the fun. Even just seeing new names in the loading screen is sweet.
Additional
Gems
Gems seemed a little tough to track tonight, I think because of the safe gem scaling, maybe? I felt like it was at times tougher to track down and get to them, but I still ended up floating a bunch in the late game. Part of this is probably spending inefficiency on my part, though.
UI
Nice changes, from the design, to the new upgrade panel art. Like it. A little tough to distinguish some of the neutral purchases, had to keep mousing over to remind myself which are which.
Pathing and Neutral CohLysions
I suppose this has to do with the netcode, too, but when you combine what feels like more responsive pathing with the neutral purchase collisions, the transitions between game play aspects seems so much smoother.
Vela art
I really like the theme that you guys seem to have, with this techno-organic hybrid on many of the squads. Vela's art, combined with the Windray, really nail this sort of quiet, graceful, deadly outsider thing that I feel totally fits the skill-set.
I guess I don't really have much critique here, games were fun tonight, whether winning or losing, and the work you guys have put in shows. GG WP!
The performance increases are absolutely amazing. You guys chopped off about a full second of latency for me and the game runs like a dream.
I really noticed a huge difference with the hero scaling as well. Between the performance boost and heroes scaling as they should, I felt like I was able to do exactly what I needed to in each game and just, well, play.
Vela's model is gorgeous. Art in games is huge for me, and seeing her hero model makes me want to play the squad regardless of the squad's gameplay.
Celesta's new title "The Shadow Rose" does the same thing for me - the name and concept are so cool that I want to play as her.
Is the video game fun?
I'm not the type of person who pauses in the middle of an activity and says to the whole group "Isn't this so much fun!" - when I'm completely absorbed in something and am removed from the rest of the world, that's when I'm having fun. If a game (or anything else really) makes me forget about responsibilities, hardships, pain, and all the other negative stuff in my life and pulls me into another world, that's fun to me.
Atlas is to me what Starcraft 2 was when I first jumped into it (I never played Brood War). It's a vast world of strategy and tactics that even after several hundreds of games, I'm not sure I'll have a full and complete understanding of every aspect of it. This is totally different from how it was when I joined 6-odd months ago, when I felt after twenty or so games I had a solid grasp of not only where the game was, but also where it was heading strategically. Atlas has become much deeper to me in possibilities, and I'm really looking forward to seeing how it continues to grow.
When I load up a game, unlike Starcraft or LoL or Hearthstone or Halo or any other game really, I know I'm going to enjoy myself when the game begins. Now that pathing and latency have both improved, combat is really fun to me. Decisions on when to take which bases are fun. Choosing how to spend my gems is fun. When I play, my mind is thinking mostly about "okay, what should I do next, and what's the best way to go about doing it?". Unlike Starcraft, there is no heavy weight on economy, since two large resources are XP and Gems, which are earned through combat and space control, and thus there's less fragility based around holding expansions and getting momentum through "greedy" expansions. Unlike League, there is freedom to roam and interact with my opponents in many ways - I can attack multiple paths with my army or a handful of available weapons, fight for space while collecting the ever-important gems, defend with towers, weapons (to fend off opposing weapons), and Gem Fortify! on bases, and micro efficiently in combat to gain an XP advantage over my opponent.
There is no "dying" in Atlas. When I die in League, I get a terrible sinking feeling of failure as it announces my misplay to every player in the game. Losing an army or expansion in Atlas does not mean losing the game as it does in Starcraft. A game is not decided over one mistake in the early or mid game, but rather is decided by the overarching gameplay of all three players. An actual strategy will win the game, with good team coordination. There have been many games where we've been losing all game, are down ~1 level per player, and still win through tricky tactical play and solid strategy. There is space to outplay my opponents without the soul-crushing feeling when I'm outplayed. When I'm on the losing side, I nearly always feel like there is some kind of path to victory, and even in situations where it does become hopeless, I know that something could have been done earlier in the game to prevent the loss.
Being completely honest, Atlas is the only game I really enjoy playing now. Nothing about it frustrates me. I associate no negativity to the experience of the game because I feel like everything can be overcome with the right approach. Atlas is not unforgiving and feels soft to me in this respect. Soft and warm, forgiving for my mistakes (and I sure make a lot of mistakes), and just straight-up enjoyable. After try-harding in other competitive games for several years, it's really easy to forget how to relax playing a video game. Atlas brings me back to before all of that, to where I can sit down, play a game, and just have fun.
tldr: Is the video game fun? Yes.
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